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Barbara Thomas is making a meal out of the Canadian grocery market. Her recipe for piping hot profits calls for three top-selling brands, twice as much ad spending, and a heaping helping of new products. Mix it altogether to triple earnings by the end of the decade. Since she was parachuted into the top job at Pillsbury Canada less than two years ago, Thomas and her team have led the company from a 1994 decline in sales volume, to increases of 11% in each of 1995 and 1996. Thomas's five-year goal for the company, called Vision 2000, is to triple profits by the end of this decade. And, she says, Pillsbury is on schedule to do just that: "We are now two years into the program. So, in theory, we'd be 40% of the way there-we're ahead of that." A 20-year veteran of consumer goods marketing in the U.S.-having learned her craft while at Pillsbury USA, Nabisco and Procter & Gamble--Thomas has a reputation for turning staid brands into market leaders (see sidebar story below). Her mandate when she arrived at Pillsbury Canada's Markham, Ont. headquarters in September, 1995--replacing Steve Schmidt as president-was to help the company regain some of the ground it was losing. She and her executive team are doing that by reducing costs, improving productivity, dropping low-growth brands, fattening the ad budgets of promising lines and introducing products that consumers want. Thomas's management style is strongly team-oriented. And that, says Bob Nicholas, director of national sales and customer development, has improved productivity: "People are working harder not only because we are winning but because they know the rules of the game." Thomas's reputation as a strong marketer preceded her when she moved to Canada. The Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of Canada sought Thomas out to be on its board of directors. "We're very impressed with her credentials," says association president George Fleischmann. "She is determined to make her mark, and she is doing so." Irene Rosenfeld, who became president of Kraft Canada of Toronto last fall, says she has tremendous respect for Thomas as "an extremely competent executive who has a no-nonsense approach to getting the job done." Rosenfeld particularly admires Thomas's "terrific relationships with her peers and subordinates." One of the first things Thomas did when she landed as president was to drop the ad budget for the big green guy himself. The traditional Green Giant products are considered grocery staples by consumers, so Thomas figured the money spent advertising them (an estimated $800,000 in 1994, according to ACNielsen of Markham) could be put to better use. Brian Mirsky, vice-president marketing and sales for Pillsbury, explains: "Unless there is something new or different about the product, the impact is not going to be as strong. So we are focusing on the new and different parts of the business." While Pillsbury won't disclose financial figures for the Canadian operation, Thomas claims all the company's brands are market leaders-other than Toaster Strudel, which runs second to Kellogg's Pop Tarts. Thomas attributes that number-two positioning to the fact that Toaster Strudel has only been on the market for about three years. But Kellogg should expect a fight for the top rung in the category. "You've heard us talk about commitment to be number one in the marketplace and we are...only number two in one business," Thomas says. "And for our money, that won't last." Since she came on board, the Canadian division has dropped one brand: its Fraservale line of frozen vegetables. Thomas says it had no hope of climbing into first place, because it was competing against the market leader, Pillsbury's own Green Giant. At the same time, Pillsbury has added new products, particularly in the growing meal-solutions category. Under the Green Giant label, it has introduced two lines: Pasta Garden, a line of frozen pasta and vegetable dishes, and Create a Meal, a frozen stir-fry vegetable mix, launched in June. As new products, these warrant new advertising, so Pasta Garden is being advertised in western Canada now, and TV spots for Create a Mealare expected this fall. Not everything the company has tried has been a hit, though. To Thomas's surprise, Pillsbury's line of low-fat refrigerated baked products fell flat with Canadian consumers. Thomas attributes Canadians' relative disinterest in low-fat and fat-free products to a theory that Canadians aren't as overweight--and concerned about lowering fat intake--as Americans. Thomas and her management team are also busy building existing brands like the Old El Paso line of Mexican foods and the Pillsbury brand refrigerated baked products. In early 1995, Pillsbury acquired Primo Foods, which consisted of Primo pasta and Italian foods, Old El Paso and Underwood meat spreads. Thomas was given international responsibility for the Primo business prior to coming to Pillsbury Canada. and she continued as president of Primo until October, 1995, when Nabisco bought the Primo line. Pillsbury sold the line because, explains Mirsky, Italian food is no longer a strong growth category and Primo wasn't the number-one brand. Old El Paso, on the other hand, was retained because it is a strong brand in a still-growing category. "We believe Mexican has a huge market potential. If you look at Italian about 15 years ago and how it just exploded, we believe Mexican has the same potential," Mirsky says. And he's right. Nielsen figures show rapid growth in the Mexican food category. For example, year-over-year sales by volume of Mexican dinner kits grew by 41% in the 12 months ending April 26, 1997. Although Pillsbury pulled back on its Green Giant advertising, its brand-growth strategy includes a boost to the overall marketing budget. "I've never known a company that actually walks the talk about brand-building," Mirsky says. "All the money that we were able to get back through efficiencies and productivity we spent back in advertising. In fact, our advertising doubled last year, and we will have tripled the 1995 index by next year." While Nielsen's figures, which represent the media-buy part of ad spending, don't support the doubling claim, they do show a substantial increase since Thomas came on the scene: Ad spending on all Pillsbury-owned brands was 87.8 million in 1996, up sharply from $6.1 million in 1995 and $4.8 million in 1994. Almost all the company's ad spending is now in television, Mirsky says, because of the medium's ability to build brands quickly. (In the early 1990s, Pillsbury used magazine ads as well as TV.) The company still uses sampling, but "that takes longer to get awareness," he explains. Much of the company's higher ad spending is going to the Pillsbury brand refrigerated baked products. On grocery shelves for about 30 years, the products were ripe for a 1990s-style facelift that would appeal to consumers demanding convenience. People weren't familiar with how to use it, and new generations of consumers weren't understanding the versatility of the product," Mirsky says. "So we started advertising its versatility--that you could use it with sweet goods, with chocolate, with apples, and, on the other hand, with hot dogs to make crescent dogs." Current TV spots show people using Pillsbury refrigerated dough to make different appetizers and snacks. This approach fits right in with the current trend by major food marketers to offer meal solutions. And it has increased volume sales by about 15% since the campaign launched two years ago, says Mirsky, adding that this is a purely Canadian strategy. This campaign, and all of Pillsbury Canada's advertising, is created by Pillsbury's long-standing agency, Leo Burnett of Toronto. The only exception are the TV spots for Toaster Strudel, done by FCB in San Francisco. As 2000 approaches, Thomas is quick to point out that the company still has a long way to go before achieving its Vision 2000 goal. And, she says, the next goal is already in the planning stages. I hope none of us are guilty of complacency, and I think we're all more focused on the challenges ahead," Thomas says. "We will want to continue building this company. I can't tell you it will be another doubling or tripling in five years, but that's the way we think." Pillsbury brands Green Giant Frozen & canned vegetables Pasta Garden frozen veggies & pasta Boil in Bag frozen veggies in sauces Frozen veggies & rice Frozen fruit Pillsbury Refrigerated baked goods, including dinner rolls, wiener wrap, pizza crust, bread sticks, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, cookies and turnovers Toaster Strudel Frozen pizza, Pizza Pops, Pizza Bundles Old El Paso Taco sauce, salsa & picante Garnishes & seasonings Taco shells Refried beans Nachips Taco, fajita, buralto kits Frozen chimichangas and burritos Chili con carne Mexican rice Underwood Deviled ham, chicken and liverwurst spreads Accent Seasonings Making her own headlines The president of Pillsbury Canada likes to use motivational phrases like "go fearlessly into the unknown" and "make your own headlines." But Barbara Thomas is probably most fond of telling people to set "big, hairy, audacious goals." These are rules Thomas lives by. Confident, tenacious and candid, Thomas places great value in teamwork and says that her personal list of rules for success includes winning graciously. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan, Thomas is a 20-year veteran of consumer-goods marketing. Prior to being named president of Pillsbury Canada in 1995, she was with Pillsbury USA for two years: as vice-president and division manager, pizza snacks; and as division manager for breakfasts and desserts. Before joining Pillsbury, Thomas was senior VP marketing at Nabisco in East Hanover, N.J. from 1991 to 1993. There, she was instrumental in the launch of the low-fat SnackWell's brand, which she considers "audacious" because the company introduced a completely new brand rather than simply adding low-fat extensions to an existing line. One of the biggest challenges handed to Thomas came while she was at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1989 to 1991. Her task at P & G, where she held a variety of executive and marketing positions, was to reposition the industrial cleaning products division, which was losing market share to less-expensive competitors. Her solution was to position the product line as a "cleaning system" and offer free user training to customers. Within two years, P & G doubled its business in the industrial cleaning products sector, Thomas says. Among her victories at P & G, Thomas also counts the repositioning of the Folgers coffee brand. The goal was to "own the morning," she says. Armed with "great amounts of money," P & G bombarded consumers for three months with the new jingle "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup." The result was doubled profits, Thomas says. While she credits journalism schooling for helping her focus her thinking, Thomas says she's learned three main things: the importance of brands; the need to set goals and make tough choices; and "the value of great people." And her fearlessness she learned from her father. "My Dad is a very aggressive man and a self-made man," she says. "I think the most important thing is to do your homework and then be fearless, challenge yourself and then don't be afraid of rising to the challenge. And my Dad taught us not to be afraid." It may be because of this fearlessness that Thomas can enjoy the challenges she sets for herself, asking her colleagues, "How could you settle for any less fun?"